Alz Media, Hey everybody, Robert here, and the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences have announced that three different Cool Zone media shows have been nominated for awards at the thirtieth annual Webby Awards. You can vote on these now if you just google the name of the podcast and the category. Behind the Bastards has been nominated in
the Experimental and Innovation Podcasts category. It Could Happen Here is in the News and Politics Podcasts category, and James Stout's mini series Migrating to America A Dream Worth Dying For has been nominated in the Podcasts Documentary category. And you can find links to vote for each of these podcasts in the episode description and in the posts on social media for episodes that It could Happen Here and
Behind the Bastards. Thank you. Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast where I am presumably on vacation or at least working on a different series of episodes. And this week, as for the last three episodes, my good Pal Grammy Award winning Greasy Will this guy's here, Yeah is here to talk to us.
This guy is here to talk to us about Part four of Phil Specter, which and to be To be fair, I've been drinking the whole time, but now I feel like this is a celebratory shot, which is out of the celebrations.
We out two different recording days, folks.
Yeah, so I can get really because if we'd had to keep going on the first one, I just wanted to keep you alive. Yeah, which, by the way, I have some words for your viewers. Uh oh oh no, after the grammy hold on to take the shot first. Uh hey, guys, hey guys, how about how about let's not talk about my appearance.
You know, these dark circles under my eyes are genetic.
Every person in my family who has a drug or alcohol addiction gets them. So this is rude of you to just assume I'm drinking too much. Was adcast sorry for having fun?
You know he's still got the job done.
Yeah, I made it through. And then look what you got out of this. You got me saying dang, dude, I should tell them about Phil Spector because not everybody knows the whole story of Phil Spector and it's so incredibly interesting, which is where we will pick up after a word from these sponsors or whatever. Wow, some sponsors, and we're back I always wanted to say that. It felt right.
You're so professional right now?
Thanks, Yeah, I know. I'm actually I stream every week.
I do.
I spend a lot of time on the Internet. I'm so good at talking to nobody, so it's amazing to have somebody to actually talk back to Normally. It's just like the comment section on one of my stupid ass videos, which you know, don't so Phil Spector, Uh, he just had an article when the the I think this is one of the most insane cause and effects of history
that has ever happened. Because Phil Spector, he has this journalist come and this journalist writes a piece on him for the U for Interview magazine or some I wrote it down, but I don't remember, so let's just pretend I said it. So he he writes an article for me, he puts it in this magazine and it comes out and Phil breaks his sobriety, loses it, starts drinking menacingly, right, he loses his mind. He's he's, he's kind of it's it's not a positive article. It's positive in the sense
that it's like, hey, I'm talking about Phil Spector and relevant. Yeah, yeah, but it's negative in the fact that, like Phil sees all the bad things that this guy says about him, and he starts drinking again, and he finds himself on the night of February second, two thousand and three, at the House of Blues. This is where he will run into Lana Clarkson. And I feel as though we do not.
I mean, it's hard to give victims as much attention as they deserve, right, It's like, that's that's that's a very difficult thing because the interesting part of this whole thing is that Phil Specter is fucking insane and this was a fairly normal Los Angeles person living their life, and so it's like the bulk of the story lies on crazy boy, right. So yeah, I do want to spend just a moment first off, to show you Lana Clarkson beautiful. She's beautiful.
This is her a like almost forty years old, probably.
She is a beautiful woman. She was an actress, She worked in Hollywood. She friends, had many friends, She had a lot of friends. A lot of people remembered her lovingly when she was gone. All right, so this is our story of Lana Clarkson. Lana Clarkson was born on April fifth, nineteen sixty two in Long Beach, California, and she grew up in the southern California endless orbit of Hollywood.
You know, it's like the industry always feels really close to you when you're in Los Angeles, no matter what suburb you in, it feels like you're you're not far from the big leagues. Right from an early age, she gravitated towards performance, and at six feet tall, she had a striking presence that made her hard to ignore. Like many Angelino's, Clarkson absorbed the idea that Hollywood rewarded persistence and if you stayed visible long enough, something would eventually
break your way. And I think that's a very reasonable Los Angeles feel. It's like, you know, there is a lot of there's a lot of hey, you could make it at any time, I'm here kind of feels.
And it's it's true in that, like it is the only way people who aren't born into the industry or whatever succeed. But if you are not a nettle baby, right, this is the only thing that works. But also it still fails for ninety percent of people.
To guess, I mean, yeah, I'm being yeah, yeah, that very optruistic.
Yes, it's it's not. It does not go well for a lot of people.
But no, I mean, yeah, we're sitting here as two of the people in our own fields who like managed to make it through that ninety nine percent thing. And it is like, I know that a lot of people who, yes, you know, wound up somewhere else.
I went to school with like seventy five people, and I know one of them that still has a job in the audio world. And that is just the I know, the class before me, the class after me. I know, like, I know hundreds of people that came in with me, and I know none of them still having job.
It's wonderful to tell people to chase their dreams. You're also so you don't lie to them when you do it. Yeah, you can chase your dreams for a while, you know, have an exit plan, have a gamble.
Just rationalize, rationalize to yourself, like, here's the thing, right, this is what I tell people about this, which I think is the best advice. If you're the type of person who when people tell them you're never gonna make it, go like no, no, no, that's you. I make it. I do it. No one can tell me. In fact, I'm gonna do it three times as hard because you said I couldn't. Then maybe this life is for you.
Maybe if you thrive on people telling you know, and you think that that's the coolest thing ever, and you just want to shove it in their face, you are you don't know anything. I'm going to spite you. Third wife, second wife. Yeah, all right. So by the nearly early nineteen eighties, she is landing small parts. She's getting some brief exposure in mainstream productions. She's in Fast Times at Richmond High. She's a little little background character in there.
You know her.
Her steadier work came in genre films, where she became recognizable to audiences through fantasy and cult B movies such as Barbarian Queen, Barbarian Queen two and Death Stalker Feels Very You might remember me from such works as Barbarian, Barbarian Queen two, Death these are these are super B movie type things. In later years, we get weird about saying B movies as though we're supposed to call them like lesser grade movies. I don't know what lesser off market.
I don't know what. It's weird. They're b movies. I don't know why that suddenly got pc in any way. And I'm ranting about this right now because it made me mad.
It was okay, oh, it.
Made me mad. There was a bunch of articles that I read about Lona Clarkson specifically that were like, you should call her a B movie actress. That's degrading, and I'm like, that's just no love to be We called Bruce Campbell right being reactor, right exactly anyway, Campbell anyway. So, but so Barbarian Queen was actually produced by Robin Corman, who did the original of the nineteen sixty Little Shop of Horror. So it wasn't They're not like a prestigeal. But she's connected.
She's doing well yeah and Carman Yeah, that's nobody. Yeah yeah.
And they gave her a foothold in the industry and a loyal cult following too. She's like an early comic book, you know, comic con type thing, you know, like shees show up to those things and all the nerds are like, Barbarian Queen. Uh, she does kind of. She's type cast, right, She's a six foot tall, beautiful blonde woman. She is very much type cast as either the like the warrior queen or the bimbo. Right, She's like she's in those
two categories. And you know, when you start reaching your forties that that's a tough one because you're not physically the same as you were when you were in your twenties doing you know, action movies, swinging stories around and everything. And also you know, it's like as the bimbo role, it's like you're starting to look older, right of course, And I'm not trying to be derogatatory toy. It's just the industry we live in. It's an honest thing that
we have. You know, it's Hollywood. So as the years passed though, she leans into the identity and she's attending comic and genre conventions where she signs autographs and she stays connected to her fans. She has a website in the early two thousands, which is something you know, like you're connecting that that's the you know, the heartbeat of nerds if you had a website in the early two thousands.
But you know, Hollywood has a way of quietly moving on from people, and as the directive video boom of the eighties faded, so did many of the roles that had sustained her. Her career didn't collapse so much as just narrow. You know, it's a slow erosion of opportunity. And everybody in la was going it goes through it. You know, it's like there's just less roles for the old, older woman than there is for the young buxom beauty
or whatever. You know. In the early two thousands, while at a house party, she's dancing in her high heels and she slips and falls, breaking both of her wrisk. The accident derailed her acting career because of course you're not You're not going to auditions with two two broken risks or whatever. And and and you know she's starting to see her career kind of slip away. You can't in the in the world, in this world, in the all the entertainment, you can't take a break, Robert. You
know that you work yep seven hundred days a year. Yeah, you are working like you are a busy bee over there doing episodes all the time, which is why I'm here. You alive, yes, and you have an amazing productive output. But it is you know, if you were to force to take a long break, you know, it could damage your career because people move on. You know, that's just the fact of what happens. Yeah, So she begins pivoting
to comedy. She starts writing her own stand up act, and like she's trying to do other things like get out of her type cast. Around two thousand and two, while Clarkson was still pursuing acting, she takes a job at the House of Blues on Sunset Strip. She gets a job working in the Foundation room upstairs, which is where musicians and industry figures and celebrities are all kind of hanging out. It's the VIP room of the Hollywood Sunset Strip. Like, so you know, it's a good place
to be still being connected, right, Yeah. Like many who took those jobs, she understood that proximity could still mean possibility, and she hoped that meeting the right person might reopen doors that had quietly closed. It was the kind of compromise that Hollywood encourages you to, like stay close enough to the spotlight so you can kind of, you know, be in proximity of good things happening. If you spent any time in any entertainment industry at all, like you
get what's going on. Like some sometimes the phone just stops ringing, and you got to start hustling in different ways.
Yeah.
Right, on the night of February second, Clarkson was working there. And she's still holding onto the idea that her story in Hollywood isn't finished. She's forty years old, but she's still hopeful, still recognizable in certain circles, and still navigating that fragile space between past visibility and future chance. The night she met Phil Spector that would, you know, bring her into infamy for the rest of her life, but
obviously for the worst reason. Yeah, Lana's story is the story of a billion people, right, It's like we've seen so many of these, you know, they flicker for a little bit, but they you know, it's it's hard. This is a hard city. There is not a lot of room to have a billion Robert Downey juniors, right, we need right, like people will come and go. That's how it's hard. It's harder for a woman probably, you know, like this town chows people up and spitzer out. So
but she's still hopeful. She is writing on her blogs really hopeful things all the time. I'm excited about this. I wanted to there's no there's no air of like sadness around what is going on. And this is important because she's about to end up dead and there's going to be a lot of doubt cast upon her mental state at this time. But yeah, seemingly she's a very happy person, still believes in like the best will come for her.
Right.
When Clarkson first encountered Spector, she miss she reportedly mistook him for a woman.
Keep in mind, she's she's six foot tall. He's five foot four.
He's wearing big wigs and like dressing all crazy, like he's got platform heels and shit, why is.
He wearing because he wants to be taller. Yeah, of course she mistakes him. Yes, that makes sense.
Yeah, he looks like an old woman in Hollywood. Yeah, by this time, he's like he's wearing elaborate wigs and eccentric clothing and his theatrical presentation kind of become a part of his public persona. All right, he walked, He walks right into the Foundation Room, no hesitation, just like walks straight in there. And this is a high class VIP area. So Lana Clarkson, being the hostess of the Foundation Room, is like, hey, o hey, ma'am, missus, lady,
you know. She's like trying to stop him from walking to know who he is, and he gives her the old don't you know who I am? I'm not a missus like I'm Phil fucking Specter. Now, keep in mind, is fucking two thousand and three, right, Yeah, it was in the seventies. It's been a minute, right, two whole generations have come and gone of people no longer listening to his music regularly.
So it's like nobody knows who he is, and you know, and this is a very classic la you.
Don't know who I am? You know who I am. I can't believe you don't know who I am?
Has happened to anybody who encountered somebody who was even slightly famous in Los Angeles.
That you So I wanted to tell this side story because it was one of the funniest things that's ever happened to me in the industry. I had a guy say that to me, you don't know who I am? And I said, I said no, and I know tons of people, so that is so embarrassing for you. And they were like, and they were like, what's your name? You're never gonna work in this town again. And I was like my name greasy wheler man, write it down, take a picture. I don't give a fuck, do you know?
And I was like, I hear that so often. It means nothing. It's lost all meaning to me. And he turns out. So it turns out. The next day he calls my last boss, the boss that I had at the time working at the studio. He calls her and she says, and this is a quote from her direct quote, Kandas Stewart, she's the homie. She said, you know that guy's killed people before. You should probably you should probably not anger him.
Beefing with Sugar night.
No context of or anything, just you know that guy's killed people, right, No?
How not? Why not? Where?
All? Right?
So Lana's manager steps into the situation, you know, the heat, Phil loses his mind. Manager steps in, Sorry, mister specter, we got to the table for you. Let's put you down like we got everything. And Lana is super embarrassed, she's super apologetic, like she's pretty new to the job still, she hasn't been working there long and uh, and you know she's trying, she's doing this to meet people, and now she's just angered of what she perceives to be a very powerful person.
But again, it's like early two thousands. How was she supposed to know who Phil Spector is?
One hundred percent? One hundred percent? So she's trying to make up for it. She does her best to try and like give him extra attention, oh, mister Spector. And Phil seems to really enjoy getting this, like, oh, now you care about who I am feeling? You know, it's like, you know, he seems to really feel empowered by the whole thing. Uh, the waitress, if you remember, he goes he went to Dantanna's with another date, a high school friend. Then he takes her home because she's like, I don't
I don't want to get lit anymore. And he was like all right, So he takes her home, and then he comes back and starts drinking with the waitress, right, and then he takes the waitress to the House of Blues, and then at the House of Blues, the waitress is like, I don't want to drink anymore. I need to go home. I gotta work tomorrow. Right, It's it's like late, it's near closing time. He comes in, like very close to closing time, and it's late. It's like almost two am,
and she's like, I'm trying to go home. So Phil's like, go go have my driver to make you home. Get the fuck out of here. I don't want to be seen with somebody not drinking. He's like making fun of her. He's like mad that she wants she orders the water. He's like, nobody drinks water around me? Are you crazy? Party?
Yeah?
You know, want a party, you know. So so he sends her home and then he starts trying to put his moves on Lana Clarkson. Right. She's now she's in a position of very serious power imbalance. You know, this is this is a very Weinstein esque power imbalance where now she not only is she you know, trying to make things up to him, but he's also feeling the joy of being in that situation and pushing things even further. He's like, yeah, have it, sit down, have a drink
with me, and she's like, I can't. My boss says no. He's like, tell your boss that I'll leave if if you don't sit down and have a drink, like you know, like he's he's going off on this ship.
Yeah, and he really has never gotten used to not having that much power.
Yes, like, yeah, yeah, for sure, he still enjoys it. Like for some people it gets to that point like, bro, it's not even like fun anymore. I only want to like I just want to be left alone, you know. But for him, he clearly still is like yes, so yeah, you know, I'm sure Lana led on that she was an actress probably during the conversations, because that's what you do, right, You've seen this situation a thousand times in Hollywood, because
that's networking. That's what would you believe networking.
Is anyway, So he's telling, you know her, come back to my place.
Come back to my place. Is almost closing time. We got to get out of here. Let's come back to my place in Alhambra. We'll talk about things. I'll show you some stuff. Phil notoriously loved taking people to his house and showing him his like five seconds in Easy Rider all the time and being like not send them a baby. So I'm sure he was like, you know, I was an easy Rider, right, yeah, yeah.
Is not close.
So so the distance between the House of Blues and Alhambra is far it is.
That's not closed.
That's far far far, right, It's like, yeah, this and this is important to this conversation because at two o'clock in the morning, you don't leave.
Your safety network with an extremely.
Intoxicated man, no matter who it is, unless you're not feeling a bit like I got to take a chance on this, like this might be an opportunity for me, you know. And this is this is very clad. This is just just power balance, you know, It's just what it is. It's how it's how Hollywood operated for a long long time, and it's only now starting to get even the tiniest bit. Better follow me for no more inside stories of the horrible things that happen in this town.
All right, So she's thirty thirty miles away. You know, they're going to get into his car and drive down Hombro. She has to be, according to everybody, she has to be really coerced. She does not want to do this. But Phil keeps being like, yeah, come on, come on, come on, let's do it. Let's do it, right. But also keeping mind that Phil is shit housed right now.
Like he is a tiny man. He's maybe one hundred and forty pounds, maybe like one hundred and thirty pounds, Like he's five foot barely nothing, you know, like, and he's been drinking Navy grogs all night.
If you've never had a navy grog, it's mostly alcohol.
It's almost all.
Out that.
Just thinking about a navy Yeah, it's but also le yes, but it's a lot.
It's a lot of alcohol. And he's been drinking them all night, right. Uh, he's slurring his words and and you know, even when he's not slurring, he's pretty not like when he's not drunk, he's like pretty not understandable to begin, And I want to show because so I want to show this. Uh, I need you to understand. This is what he's like when he's sober. This is an interview he gave, and this is the types of things he says and how he sounds when he is sober.
Excellent. Did you even realize that Mickey Mouse was a black man?
Mickey Mouse was the first black movie star before Shirley Gemble, discovered by Walt Disney, the first black star.
To win an Academy Award.
He was black, he wasn't mine, and he was black movie he was movies black movie stars.
And that was before during segregation. All the people were going to see it.
And he didn't talk on an accent, and it was Walt Disney's voice, and nobody pays any attention to that.
He broke the.
Color line before anybody.
Wow, I have a lot of notes on that.
Oh yeah, do you Robert, please tell me tell me about the notes.
Sounds like he's saying he was the first black movie star before Shirley Temple. Yes, that's right. Kind of sounds like you're saying Shirley Temple was a black movie star.
She was not. She was face not black, right, but all right, no, here's here's all right. So that's one I think. I think. I think that Phil is making a joke because later in her life Shirley Temple took the name Shirley temp She made a man named Charles Black and took the name Shirley Top.
Oh my god, that's the joke.
I think he's making a joke, right.
Okay, But well, and you know, because there's there's this whole thing where like Mickey Mouse, I think there's an argument to be made. Is kind of like his character is based in part on designs from like minstrel show, right right right? I thought maybe that was the argument he was making.
Even weirder, Oh, I got so he is like, that's what he sounds like.
Sober, right, you can imagine this dude, twelve navy grogs deep at two thirty in the morning is legible.
It's like trying to It's like trying to decipher ancient. To Syrian, yes, all of all of his all of the secure already. Footage shows him leaving the club stumbling right.
He gets in his car. He calls Lana over. She finally is like, okay, fine. They arrive at his house around three am after closing down the House of Blues, and Fill and Lana go inside and are inside for about two hours. When outside Phil's limo driver, Adriano desuze here's a loud noise. He gets out of his car and sees Phil walking out the front door of his house holding a revolver. He says to Adriano, I think I've killed somebody. Uh you you should listen to the
nine one one tapes. I did not get them because I'm a hack and a fraud. Just like you know, it's a lot of work and remembering is hard. Yeah, you should listen to the nine one one. Because Adriano gets on there. He says, I think my boss killed somebody, and they're like, what makes you think that? He's like, he fucking said.
It killed somebody. Also, by the way, quick piece of advice for those of you who are going to kill somebody, don't say you killed somebody.
Don't say you killed somebody. Not a brilliant move, not exactly what I consider it to be the most eligent way to get out of a crime.
Just one simple change you can make to your murders to have better, better responses to them, folks. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, literally, yeah, it's just one little change when you kill someone.
A little little legal advice here, legal advice I should have made that.
That's not a lawyer, but I bet a lawyer will agree with me. Don't say you murdered someone.
I'm gonna make you a jingle for like the next one. That's like not actually legal advice.
Yeah.
Adriano is just a little backstory on him. He is a an immigrant. He's I believe Brazilian immigrant. Uh and he uh he speaks English extremely well for somebody who has a Brazilian immigrant. He definitely has an accent without a doubt. But this will be called into into you know, the testimony. For a lot of you, there will be a lot of questions about how much he understands English during this time, but if you listen to the nine one one to TAKEE, he clearly has a good ad
grasp of English. He tries to call his you know, Michelle Blaine, his Phil's manager or whatever, but she doesn't answer, and she says later is like the only night she's ever left her phone in the car, which is really really funny to me because I actually picture that she was like just like for one night, like I'm not
answering Phil's fucking phone calls. This guy's crazy, because she does say he's always calling her in the middle of all of his assistants, Like, yeah, Phil calls me in the middle of the night just to like be like what are you doing? You know, So I'm sure she was like, I left my phone in the car, but aside, right, the cops show up and they don't really know what's going on. They just there's a gun. Somebody's been killed.
So they show up and Phil first. They pull up and Phil is inside his house just pacing back and forth, and they do a standard tactical approach, which makes perfect fucking sense. And Phil comes outside and he's just rare umbling incoherently. They're like stir get down on the ground, and he's like, oh fuck, I didn't do anything, you know,
Like he's just like rambling. He's visibly intoxic and he's really trashed, right, But then he starts to be like, hey, guys, you got to check this out, this woman, you know, like he like he starts playing like the worst dumb angle that I've ever seen, where it was like, hey, you guys, gotta tell you, guys, you want to see this dead body. And he keeps trying to stick his hands in his pockets, and at this point the cops
have no idea what's going on. They keep being like, take your hands out of your pocket, take your hands out right, but never you won't dance, yes, yeah for cops, Yes for sure. Hey these are my hands, they're here, look right here, look at them police video.
You know.
So he won't do it. He keeps sticking his hands and uh in his pockets and they shoot him with a taser and.
I don't know, I guess he doesn't get to do that.
I don't know if the taser bounced off of him and he just got an unlucky like shot out of the taser, or if Phil is just like in Hulk mode at that point or whatever. They just say the taser is ineffective in all the sources, right, So I don't know if he just is like, you know, they got hurts.
I've known a couple of people that happened to I've know someone who ripped the leads out, so it does happen from me.
I knew a guy who ripped the leads out and then broke two cop dog's legs and was charged for attempted murder. So no surprise there, right, And he was on a herculean amount of alcohol at the time.
That makes sense, maybe a little myth who's saying, you know, but yeah, point.
Yeah, yeah, So who else is on a little bit of meth?
Well, a herculean amount probably according to my research, the sponsors of this show.
Let's cut to him, and we're back.
We're the most back, and we are. Philis just walked out of his house with a dead Lina clarks In in the foyer of his In the foyer, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say, foyer, you know, I want to I want to class it up a.
Little bit a year, just to really throw a year.
Yes, solid people are gonna love that pronunciation. There won't be a subreddit about that, all right.
So so they're mad. They tried to shoot him with the taser.
Phil won't go down.
It didn't work, didn't take And.
So the front cop has one of those big, like forty pound shields and they just rush him with this shield. Keep again your mind again, that is like a third of Phil Specter's body weight easily, so they fuck him up.
Yeah, that does not surprise me. Yeah, I bet that shield wad more needed.
Inside the house, the cops find Lina clarks And slumped over in a chair with by the front entrance. There's a gun by her left foot and blood splatter all over her shirt and her skirt. There's an open drawer beside her and an empty leather holster matching the gun that is at her feet. On the floor are her front teeth, which have been knocked out of her mouth up the muzzle of the god.
At first look, exactly the way you wouldn't shoot yourself.
Yes, but at first look it does appear as though Lana Clarkson has possibly killed herself.
Sure it certainly, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, but of.
Course Phil can't shut the fuck up, right, which sure naturally, you know, so he started, he's he's and one cop has the presence of mind to start an audio recorder sets it aside, and he's like, would I believe it? Like she just her head just did that, you know, like just nothing, I didn't do anything. I can't believe this woman came into my house like this. Right, he's
like losing his mind. He's talking all sorts of shit, but like cops are like, okay, well we're I mean, we're gonna at least take you to jail, collect some evidence, do due diligence. Even though believable enough of a story, but we'll we'll get to why it falls apart. Pretty it gets pretty flimsy. Sure, he's taken to jail. He's talking like most of the time, and then suddenly he said, and he says stuff like, oh, she kissed the gun, you know, like he says like weird stuff like that.
But his stories are just like intertwining. It's like he's he's inventing the narrative as this is happening, as he's being questioned as they're talking to him, he's inventing the narrative and just seeing what makes sense, you know, what people react to. It seems like he's a bit of like a choose your own adventure game over here, and he's like, if the CoP's eyebrows go up, turn the
page ninety seven, you know so. But eventually he does start sobering up and realizes he should shut the fuck up, which he does, and the next day he gets He's bails himself out on a one million dollar bond. Of course he has that money, so ye. Michelle Blaine, his assistant, and Phil the up in a hotel because the police are searching his house and conducting a thorough investigation. Immediately, the cop on the sea, the cop, the detective that's
assigned to the case. He immediately realizes that this is going to be under intense scrutiny. So he unlike many of the other court cases that are famous for this time, we're Oj Simpson just happened, Robert Blake just happened. A lot of botched fucking police work in these cases, intentionally
or not. Who knows. OJ's son probably killed him anyway, So he recognizes, I better do things by the book, I better do things right, right, So he starts suspecting Phil, and he starts collecting serious evidence, and the evidence collected points that you know, it's probably nefarious at least, right, But there's some conflicting pieces of evidence. First, Lana does have gunshot residue on her hands, but Phil does not.
Oh, okay, So.
Phil, somehow in this situation has not gotten gunshot residue on him.
Yeah, which is possible, but yeah, that definitely is like an argument that his defense attorney is going to be able to use. For sure.
Yes, there is blood all over Lana's shirt. This is I mean, if anybody's ever seen this type of injury or this is a bloody event. Yah. The way you know, the head basically compresses everything and it expels back out the mouth, which is why. Also her her teeth were knocked out, right, So she has a tremendous amount of blood on her, on her chest and on her legs.
But it stucks at a very specific point, right. Phil's saliva is on her drink glass as well as hers, suggesting that they did kiss, and it's also on her breast, so there is some sexual contact that has occurred. In some manner without a doubt. Right, Phil does not have blood splatter on himself, at least not in the suggested
amount had he been in that situation. Right upstairs, the police find the white jacket that Phil was wearing when he was last seen at the House of Blues, And although it has blood on it, the specs are tiny. This is not like indicative of what you would expect for someone who has just killed somebody that way, right, It's like that he is he is conspicuously absent of any evidence that points to and you know, like with
stuff like that blood. You know, forensic We've done our conversations on forensic evidence and everything being kind of a made up CSI bullshit thing, but there is a certain expectation for certain things, like the amount of blood that should be on you and the gunshot residue that should be on you had you been the one pulling the trigger. Right, So they find this this white jacket, and then they also find the gun that's on the floor by her foot.
It has no blood on it and no prints. And upstairs in a bathroom they find a cloth diaper that has blood all over it, you know, like the.
Like true like baby like old school baby. They references a lot.
I've never used a cloth diaper to clean my guns, but apparently that's like the jam or was in the early two thousands. I don't know, they talk. They talk about it as though I'm supposed to just know that that's what we've got.
Sure you could, like, I can see why it would work, and it's probably cheap. Yeah.
Yeah, And as someone who loves guns, I've never even thought about that. And I have a baby, so I don't know.
I've never had a but I've never had access to I've never seen a fucking fabricousper Yeah.
It's very yeah, I mean, you know, anyway, so they mentioned it a lot. It's a big deal, but don't I don't really get why the diaper part of it was so significant, but they they But it is that it is covered in blood, and he is clearly probably evidence points to the fact that he probably used this to clean off the gun, because obviously the gun should
have fingerprints and blood on it and has neither. What I consider the most damning evidence is that Lana was found in the chair at Phil's front door with her purse slung over her shoulder. It seems very indicative that she was trying to leave, right. Yeah, they're in a big, twenty two room mansion and she's by the front door with her purse over her shoulder. It seems like she is trying to get out of this house. Yeah, there's some you know, like I said, some really conflicting stuff.
There's blood like everywhere except on Phil, and there is gunshot residue again not on film. Everything in Phil's house is read. By the way, this is just a side note that I found. Really everything in his house. When you look at the crime scene photos, they're all read. Everything's read everywhere. Damn. It's been such a pain in the ass trying to find evidence inside this house. That's just like red everywhere.
It's crazy, seking blood spatter in that house. Yeah, So.
They also find vic it in and alcohol in Lana's blood. The bullet went in her mouth and pierced her spinal cord and likely killed her almost instantly. They find a bruise on her tongue, which is a very unlikely thing if she had put the gun in her mouth herself. You know, it's like, that's not an injury you have if it hasn't been forcibly put in your mouth. The cops build their case, and it's not until November of two thousand and three that they finally charge Phil formally
with murder. So good, solid six months goes by before they you know, but they're doing their job appropriately. You can't half ass these charges. You have to make sure that coming into this you are absolutely ready for it. Right. So, something I never see in any of the documentaries about this is it's not until March two thousand and seven that they begin the trial for Phil. The entire time he's walking around Freeman, so she's killed in in February of two thousand and three, he does not go on
trial until March of two thousand and seven. Right, he has years of just walking around free knowing what he's done and everything that's going on, you know, so he just you know, he's just chilling. During this time. He does his best to be smirch Lana at every opportunity, Like he starts beginning his like public narrative, and his lawyers are basically like, Phil, you need to stay the fuck off of the goddamn like TV. And he's like, you guys, don't know what I'm doing. I'm making a case.
I'm gonna get there, right. He begins claiming that she killed herself and that he was the victim in the situation. It's like he literally is like, this happened to me. This happened to me. Can you believe it? Like she killed herself and this happened to me, and I'm the innocent victim in I had to deal with it.
Yeah?
Yes.
Uh.
He was angered by his lawyers in two thousand and six because they couldn't get his case thrown out. So he be this like series of home videos that he posts on the what is still very much the new Internet, right, this is like the early two thousands. He's making his own website and posting these videos on and his assistant Michelle Blaine, she she helps him make these videos, right, and it's they're the most unhinged videos here. Sophie, could
you show the I forget what it's called self interview? Yes? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the one, Sophie. Could you show that for us?
Unfortunately I can.
Not have anything to do with her dad. She may have accidentally taken her own life. She may have purposely taken her own life. She may have been eating the gun with her dancing. She may have been doing anything. I don't know why, when, how, or where, in what circumstance. She may have taken her wrong life, whether she planned.
To or not.
Are you lawyer just sitting over there? Like, are you freestyling? Motherfucker?
Get pounding tombs? Pounding tombs?
I always think I think about did you see this recent thing with the billionaire? Do I forget his name of the billionaire? Do where his lawyer is like, if you don't shut the fuck up right now, I'm gonna kill you.
Yes, yeah, that's a good defensive attorney.
Yes, that guy is a professional.
That's why he makes more than a five word answer. I'm gonna fucking kill you.
This motherfucker is out here wearing puka shells and Hawaiian shirts, being like, I don't know why she did it.
She's kicking then in her mouth and was dancing.
I don't know.
Michelle his assistance, She says, this is where she really starts to like.
The facade of Phil breaks down for her, and she she starts being like, I don't know if I'm like cut out for being around this shit, and she tries to quit, and Phil she brings her son with her to quit because she's afraid of Phil. Her son's like giant Phil, saying he's gonna kill her. Pheels like screaming at the top of her lungs while she's walking out.
She says that Phels sexually harassed her. Claimed that. She claims that Phil told her, hey, we should get married so that you don't have to testify, you know, because if you were married, you can't be you can't testify, you know. And she's like, I don't know anything, motherfucker, Like she.
Does the ship of this motherfucker, Please tell me. She sues the show.
She does sue him. She has to sue him because he he promises her money. He promises her all sorts of stuff. Uh and and he does not come through on his promises. So it does end up like all this like film stuff. She gets her names all over it, and shit, it looks really bad for her. It probably does suck up her career for a little while. But Hollywood, baby,
it's probably fine. So she she does leave. She files a lawsuit against him, claims what she I think she does make a little bit of get a little bit of it back, but I'm sure it most of it, got blood sucking fucking lawyers. Yeah. So so the court case, right, the prosecutors, they they go out and they're like, hey, anybody had a gun pressed to their head by Phil Spector? And fortunately, fortunately John Lennon is dead. So he got a gun pressed right against his head, so he got uh,
he's done for Actually I don't think he did. I think he got shot in the chest. But anyway, I'm sorry, I just I needed that. So but they do find they find many, many people. One of them I'm gonna go through like there's like.
A football stadium full of people who had guns pulled on them by Phil Spector.
It was not a challenge to find people that, Yeah, it was, it was. It was really not like so. Joan Rivers testifies Joan Rivers, the comedian Joan Rivers that we all know and loved and everything. I think she's dead. If not, she's dead in spirit to me, she's so In the in the mid nineteen seventies, she says she's at Spector's home and he she tries to leave, and he won't let her. He points a gun at her head, tells her don't fucking go anywhere. You're staying right here
forces people at gunpoint to stay. This is the picture that they want to paint. This is what they're trying to say. Phil gets mad when people want to go home. He doesn't like it, so Joan rivers, she testifies. Bj Cook, another singer, claims that around the mid nineteen seventies, testified the Specter threatened her with a gun during an argument while she was visiting him. She wasn't allowed to leave
until he could calm down. Pam Shaw or Pam Jackson, depending on who reports it, she testified Spectacle a gun during an argument and blocked her from leaving her residence. Kathleen Sullivan in the nineteen eighties testified that Spector threatened her with a firearm during a confrontation at his home. There is they like I think that. I think the end tally was like twelve people that they found that were open to Like, yeah, Phil Spector threaten me with
the gun trying to leave his house. It's always that narrative, especially since you know Lana is found with her purse on her shoulder. She's trying to leave the house. This is when Phil Spector loses his mind. Is when you try and go home.
Yeah yep, so, So Spector during the trial is insane.
He's crazy. It's it's this is why. First off, this is why every time my pubes get a little unruly, I tell my girlfriend that I'm putting Phil Spector on trial, right because uh oh here, let me pull this. Let me pull this photo up. This is amazing.
This is broke Robert.
This is Phil Spector's hairdoos during the trial, right, changes his hair every fucking trial. This brings us to this is like one of my favorite.
Moments how he got it back right? Okay, one of my.
Favorite moments in early Hollywood history.
This is his way to talk about these hairs.
So before we do that real quick, I just want to pivot and show you Phil Spector's one of my favorite moments in Internet history, right is during this time because there was a thread where they kept continuously photoshopping bigger and bigger hair on Phil Spectora. Here it's in here, yeah here it is. So the Internet thought this was hilarious, and.
They just keep keep photoshopping bigger and bigger hair.
Until he's got like the Death Star version of the event afro on his head.
Yeah yeah, so he is, I mean he is making a spectacle of this.
Try let's go to the hair real quick. You're talking about that, yeah to me, So he's wearing different wigs all the time.
First off, what's fascinating about this to me is that the first three look like mugshots, like he has just committed and one of them he has no wig and he's balding, and he looks like he got off the con Air flight. It was like whatever, By the way, yeah, that is I mean, that is his literal mugshot. The other one does look like a mug shot, but he has a wig on, but he's looking up at the camera with eyes so wide it looks like he's just seen a hand grenade go off.
So I want to point out so I'm pretty sure that the second one is his actual night of the incident booking photo, and then the first one is his booking at the time of prison photo.
That makes sense, so it does.
They are probably mugshot and he does look fucking crazy.
The third one he looks like Beetlejuice, which is amazing.
He looks like Beetlejuice. The top right one he looks.
Like he just got done with his boy band audition.
I was gonna say, he looks like Ben Stiller in Tropic Thunder as simple Jack like that, right, Yeah, and then the bottom one, it looks like he's it looks like someone gave the super ooze that made the teenage music Ninja Ninja Turtles to Joe Dirt's mullet like foot. That's what I've got.
Yeah, it's amazing, dude, he's showing he's making a total spectacle out of this whole thing.
They're all very different. Yeah, yeah, he is.
He's absolutely like this is the joke, and he doesn't take any of it serious in any way, shape or form. He's constantly arguing with his prosecution or with his defenders. He's he's like his lawyers quit time after time after time.
Uh.
For the record, I want to put this is another thing real quick. I'll go to is over here. There's also a picture here.
This is al Pacino playing Phil Spector in a later movie, which, by the way, is so stupid and amazing. I highly recommend you watch it. Al Pacino as Phil Spector, you think, you think, like, oh no, he's going over the top, but then you see the old videos of Phil Spector, like he's underplaying Phil Spector.
Pulling a gun off and enough.
Yeah, yeah, he's underplaying Phil Spen without a doubt. It is a really stupid, bad court documentary type style movie, but it is. It's really good. I totally recommend watching it as funny as hell. Al Pacino as Phil Spector is amazing, It's so good. Throughout the preceding Specter remained free on bail, continuing to live outside prison while trial unfolded.
His courtroom appearances became media spectacles, fueled by increasingly bizarre wig choices which I just showed you, towering curls, unnatural things like they became symbolic of a man attempting to control public perception even as his legal defense has fallen apart. Sophie,
this is for you, Sophie. Yes, Phil. For his part, he does acknowledge that the froze a little overwhelming, right, but he claims it wasn't out of respect disrespect for the trial, but rather that he was paying respect to Ben Wallace and Albert Einstein, which of course is fucking insane.
Stein, I fear Ben Wallace at Albert Einstein.
You'm mad, Sophy, will you will you play the video of Phil describing described.
This is yes, this is amazing, It's incredible.
Robert doesn't know who Ben Wallace is.
You will shortly. I had another question about the photograph that's all over the internet of you with the afra and what I thought was, I think he has a sense of humor, So what was with you with that?
That?
That was a tribute to Ben Wallace, Detroit Pistons forward. Took me four and a half hours to get my hair that way. I woke up at four four four o'clock in the morning or lay a glock with Cheryl to get my hair. That's straight up in the air like that. She permed it, She did everything do it. And Ben Wallace is a forward who's the most valuable defensive player of the year. He used to be with the Detroit Pistons the year they won two years ago. He wore his hair like that. Adams a tribute down
Einstein and they told it was done in jest. But I was wearing my hair like Almer Einstein in those days. I was wearing my hair like Dylan, and nobody was making fun of Dylan.
I spent a lot of time on it.
Intributed to Ben Wallace and tribute to Albert Einstein, a phonographed I saw beyond my wildest dreams. But I hadn't wearing my hair that way for about eight months to a year, and it never photographed that pictures that day. It got a little extreme. It got a little extreme, but photographed for some reason in one phonograph, only in one photograph that he.
Even knows who Ben Wallace is.
That is so crazy to me.
He starts with Ben Wallace, this one guy who was at the time was significantly like famous, irrelevant, but also it was about these other guys who are a lot less relevant right now. But I'm just gonna making it increasingly unlikely that I'm telling the truth. Yes, he's like and also Mozart, like, okay, brother.
This is this like right after the Pistons win in two thousand and four.
I would assume. So he does like he does, like sports, like he goes to like he's he's seen often like games, And I know.
I saw him at a Laker game when I was a kid.
I saw that. Fuck yeah. He also I don't know if you noticed it, but he hilarious, like never admits to wearing a wig, like in that thing he said I woke up and I was I worked on it for five hours and everything. Yeah, And they're like, so I watched his documentary and I forget which one it was. But they actually interview his wig guy. He's like, he's like, no, man, I fucking make his wigs for him.
Man, I make him.
He comes in, he's very particular about his wigs.
He comes in all the time.
But he like, he will never ever admit that he's wearing a wigs.
There's a reporter that interviews him and they say that while they were interviewing him, they're like, yeah, so what about your ways. He's like, what wigs? What wigs? I don't wear wigs. What are you talking about?
I did?
This is my natural hair. And he goes and he gets a fuckload of like photograph, like an armful of photographs and comes back and dumps them in his lap. And see, see these are all me with my hair. This is real hair. Normal people keep.
This many photos to prove that their hair is real.
This is a normal thing. This is a normal thing to do. I don't know what you're talking about.
You know who won't wear wigs do their murder trial?
Probably Washington State Highway Patrol because they don't get charged with murder when they killed her.
Yeah, see they were good for them, and we are back. So the defense did their best to slander Lana. They they portray her as a failed B movie actress who was down on her lucky and depressed. They pushed the theory that she was a starfucker essentially and that she only went with Phil in the hopes that, you know, she could take advantage of a celebrity, and when that didn't work out in the middle of the night, she killed herself out of a fit of depression. They brought
in her friend, who is this shitty woman. Her name is Pumpkin Pie. For the record, that's her name. That's all She's ever referred to as Pumpkin High. Yes, and she is the least believable witness that you've ever seen. Like, her testimony is fucking bunkers. It's like everything's like she texted, she texted me that morning and she was depressed. She's
always depressed. She hated her life, she says it. Lana always said she was gonna kill herself if she didn't get this role or you know, like like things that some things that like I believe right, like yeah, but like but like in the way that we all have a sense of humor, like you do. I'll fucking off myself if I don't get this role. You know, I
should definitely get this one. Yes, yeah, And they do everything to portray her as a washed up failure u. They even played her sketch comedy real, which admittedly was not very good. It was it wasn't good, right uh. And the defense they like the the like Phil's wife laughs during she snickers, you know, like while they're playing it, they make it out to be a laughable situation. But this kind of backfires on them in the sense that
it actually humanized her really hard. Dura number nine from the from the Trial says the reel had the opposite effect and humanized her. This isn't a quote, I'm just reading it. The reel had the opposite effect and humanized her even more to the jury. But despite that, the jury could not come to an agreement and they were deadlocked at ten two, and the judge declared a miss trial. So Phil Spector goes free.
Justice is done.
So yeah, thank you. And the end, no, no, we get justice. We get justice, my friends, Okay, So one.
Thing I know about the Phil story.
Yeah, so I real quick, I just want to bring up Rochelle Spector. I mentioned her a few times already. Rachelle Spector was Prospector's third wife. She met him initially in the nineties, but they didn't get married in two thousand and six, probably because she was like underage, I think when she met him. And also, yeah, it gross Phil, but you know, at least he does wait, you know, like we're from an era of gentleman Jimmy Page, David Bowie, George Harrison. Let's not be forgetting that.
Our idols were all horrible, horrible.
Sexual devious. Yeah yeah, but but Phil always did seem to wait till they were proper adults. So good good for him, no matter how good it was you can say. But they do get married in two thousand and six while Inspecter's waiting on trial, and then she's decades younger than Phil, and unlike his previous partners, entered his life when his music career was long over and his reputation had already become what it was, as you know, murdering, reclusive, eccentric.
So there's very serious, very serious questions about her motivation, girl do such a thing. Yes, her motivations absolutely seem to be because she knows Bro's about to go to jail and she only has to hold out for a few more years and then she possession of good.
She's in a good situation here, yes, smart, Yeah, I don't know.
I take the sorry pause. That was not a good situation.
He's on trial for murder.
She could that is a dangerous game. It's not worth the check.
What are you doing?
What are somebody has a moral compass and a and an aversion to danger here thinking I'd have done that, you know, I had a marry phil Spector at this point it seems like it seems like a proper risk.
Absolutely not, and he looks like shit anyways.
She so, she's always like in the media talking to the media and ship. She's behind him all the time. She speaks to reporters on his on his behalf, insisting on his innocence. She also gets repeatedly warned by the judge during these trials to shut the fuck up or they're gonna throw her out, because she'll be like, something will happen. She'd be like that's not true, you know, like just just being disruptive.
And stupid, cursing ass woman.
Yeah.
In two thousand and nine, Spector was retried for the murder of Lana Clarkson, and this time it lacked the spectacle of the first trial. After the first trial, the cameras aren't as interested. People don't really give a shit anymore. Yeah, it's like that was a big deal then, but it's not a big deal now. No one cares. His team went from several high profile lawyers down to just one,
but the prosecution stuck with their premise. Phil Spector has a long history of gun violence and a fear of abandonment that ended in him using his gun as a threat, and when Lona Cark Clarkson rebuked him and tried to leave, he became enraged and killed her. This time, the jury did come back in agreement Phil Spector had killed Lana Clarkson. Phil is convicted of second degree murder and he was sentenced to nineteen years to life in prison.
Good cool justice.
Yeah happen sometimes, Yeah, sometimes it happens.
Now, briefly, I do want to talk about what I actually think is the most likely scenario. I've spent a lot of time digging into this and like I've developed my own theory, which is a bit maybe, I mean, maybe maybe it makes some people mad, but we always
want to put the victim in a positive light. But I don't think she would have gone from Alhambra to Hollywood if she wasn't desperate and looking to take advantage of this situation, right, I don't think that, like you know, so forty is old in Hollywood years, absolutely, And I think the momentum, loss and everything made her desperate to really make something happen, right, which we know, like you know, desperate is the situation where where people will fly or fall.
In this situation, she just became the victim of a shitty situation, right. I think she went with Phil hoping she could use him to get an opportunity, but I don't think she had any intention of sleeping with him. I think when Phil tried to get sexual with her, she was like, no, this is my limit. I am not interested in this.
Waving a gun around. You seem like you have an absolutely a lot of reasons not don't want to get with Phil spector, Yes, but I do.
Not want to negate like the conversation that should be had. It's like he was ridiculously drunk. He is absolutely like like blind drunk at this point, right, and he's probably sexually assaulting her. That is very definitely a likely situation. But I think she got frustrated and was like, all right, I'm out of here. You promised me one drink. I've
had my one drink. It's time to go. I think she put on her purse, and I think Phil, like he has done many many times before, pulled out his gun, sat on her lap, and forced it into her mouth and said like, I'm going to kill you if you and I truly believe honestly that it was an accidental that he killed her accidentally.
Negligently, but yeah, I think it was.
Yes, negligently is what I would consider absolutely, because if you look at all the accounts, every single account that I read about Phil Spector waving a gun around and threatening people to a t, they all said, I didn't really think Phil was going to kill me. I think he was just drunk and being dumb, right, I think he had. I think he had done it so many times in his life, and I think that he had been and I think that this one time he was too drunk and he pulled that trigger, and and he
negligently killed her. And because the earliest things he said was an accident. I didn't I didn't mean to. There wasn't there one supposed to happen, you know, Like those are the first things that he says.
And I truly believe that that is probably what happened.
I think that he was just a bad gun owner who murdered somebody who it's still murdered. It doesn't it kills her.
And it doesn't change the punishment that he just I can buy that share, and I.
Just I personally believe, you know, and and also it doesn't change. Also, you know, like Phil Speckser is a horrible person. His legacy leading up to this is one of being an absolute piece of.
Dog shit society.
Yeah, he is a menace. He wrote some entire light.
You wrote something in your script that you did not read that I think is relevant to which is that you wrote that earlier in the day that she had bought multiple pairs of shoes, which I think.
Is she bought a bunch of shoes. She absolutely was not killing herself, like despite the you know, like you don't buy a bunch of shoes. And then be like tonight's the night you know it's that's not really You don't make future plans if you're gonna off yourself, and she had future plans, she talked about her future plans. It does not, in any way point towards her being suicide.
I think that is much more suggestive of Phil either killing her, as you said, fucking up doing the thing he does all the time. I think likely.
I think the explanation for the lack of gun residue on his hands was probably that her hands were surrounding his hands while he had a gun held to her face or possibly all the way in her mouth.
Yeah, maybe she's fighting him because it's terrifying and the gun pulls the trigger, right. Yeah, I think that that is.
The most valid explanation. He also absolutely cleaned up afterwards. There's no prints on the gun, there's no blood on the gun. He absolutely cleaned the gun afterwards in order to try and obfuscate some of this situation, and then.
Spent years and years trying to ruin this woman's reputation.
Yes, he goes to jail in two thousand and nine. He spends six fucking years free after he kills this woman, six years. America.
Yeah, yeah, this is the country I lost.
My leg for half lost, but I love the feeling in my leg. I lost the feeling in my leg that counts. Yeah, so this it sucks. He spends the remainder of his life incarcerated. He spends decades, you know, prior to this emotion, constructing these walls, and then he gets imprisoned by the walls that, you know, we construct a society. That's my ooh, look at that moment, right,
we all feel smarter now. In December of twenty twenty, Phil contracted COVID while in prison, and in January of twenty twenty one, he died of complications from COVID.
That didn't mean to laugh.
He calls his daughter and it's like and to tell her because she he loses contact, but he calls her to tell her, I didn't die on my birthday. Look at me, you know. Yeah, that's that's his big you know, thay his daughter again to the end of his life. She and still today, Nicole. She she proclaims his innocence and she stands by him, says a wonderful father. She loves him as a his other kids fucking hate him. Show up during the trialer like this dude, he did shitty things, but his daughter.
I just wonder what wig he was buried with.
Actually, Sophie, if you wouldn't mind pulling up, Oh, actually it's me this.
Time, me, this time, I will pull up. We do have a picture of Phil Spector, the last picture before he dies.
It looks like this. Somewhere here it is bam, there he is Phil Spector and all of his glory.
He does look like an extra from the Santa Claus.
No wig, crooked teeth, hearing aids in because he's probably going deaf at this point. It is a stark contrast of everything about him. He dies, you know, pretty much deaf, no hair. It's all the things that he fought his entire life and here he is at the end of his life. Go fuck yourself, Phil, That's how you go out now, because because that is a bit it's a bit of a happy ending. I'm not gonna pretend it's a happy end. No, he's dead because I like to
leave us on in even happier ending. Because we go through a lot, don't we hear at Bastards, we we go through a lot, right, It's just it's you know, I I I listened to the Himmler episodes.
I it was hard Man or the Varenti Barrier episode.
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah that guy.
Uh.
This shit's sad, you know.
Uh.
So I want to leave you with a happy ending of ending. After escaping Phil Spector in nineteen seventy two, Ronnie Spector Or as she would later go by her maiden named Ronnie Bennett, again entered what she later described not as a triumphant comeback, but a long, grinding fight to reclaim her life, identity, and voice. The divorce left her financially constrained and legally silenced, while Phil retaining control
over much of her catalog and publishing uh. For years, Ronnie struggled with alcoholism and instability, problems she openly acknowledged and as scars from her captivity, like this is what she went through and this is why she is like that, right, But she never fully disappeared. Throughout the seventies and eighties, she continued recording and performing sporadically, collaborating with artists like Any Money, Joey Ramone, and slowly rebuilding her sense of
self outside Phil's shadow. Survival not stardom was the priority. Hold on a second, fuck, I forgot to mention the Ramones. He pulled a gun on the Ramones and didn't let him leave the studio. I don't know how I missed that one. That's a big So the Ramones are recording rock and roll high School and Phil is brought in to record them and he pulls a gun on the whole band and says, you're not leaving until you get
the songwright right. Some members of the band later deny it, but Joey Ramones said it happened, so it's like that. But yes, so Joey Ramone definitely. They probably in the studio were like, hey, so Phil crazy, right? Fuck that guy. That guy was a nut, right, you know. I'm sure they had some memories that they shared. In the nineteen nineties and two thousands, On experienced a long overdue reprisal as rock history began to properly credit girl groups and
female vocalist. Her influence became undeniable. Be My Baby was canonized as one of the most important pop recordings ever made, and Ronnie herself was recognized not just as Phil Spector's muse, but as a single, irreplaceable voice. She reunited with the Ronettes for selective performances and released new music on her own terms, and became a beloved figure among younger musicians, who saw her both as a pioneer and a survivor.
Oh yeah.
Her nineteen ninety memoir Be My Baby was especially important, breaking decades of silence and reframing her story as one of endurance rather than victimhood. I will tell you this book she wrote, is tremendous. She deserves every ounce of credit for being a survivor that she is, because she looks at all this stuff the same way I look at like surviving the Iraq War, you know where it's like like this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me, But I'm gonna make jokes out of it
instead of like letting it destroy me. She absolutely has such a strength and such a sense of humor about all the things that happened to her. Even the coffin. She's like, I guess he thought that was gonna scare me, but Rose five four, Yeah, let's not kid ourselves. It wasn't like he was gonna physically put me in there. When Phil Spector was convicted and in prison, Ronnie did
not gloat. She simply said justice has been done. When she died in twenty twenty two, she was remembered not as someone who survived a monster, but as an artist whose voice changed popping. And she did get to outlive Phil Spector. She got to see him die and lived a happy year and a half two years damn near without him in the world. So good on her. Thankfully she found happiness and success despite going through this whole thing.
And she got to see him die.
And that, my friend, Robert, is your two week vacation, all summed up the story of Phil Spector. He is without What do you think?
Wait?
Where h ken do you?
Let's for assess this?
Uh?
What was what was the most insane thing you think of all of all this?
The sheer number of very famous people he pulled guns on. Just thinking about how much clout you have to have to pull a gun on, like the Ramote, John Lennon, the Ramon Lennon and everyone Leonard. Don't say anything about it, like Leonard, Hey man, I know you wrote Hallelujah, but you got to keep your mouth shut.
Hallelujah.
He didn't pull the trigger, all right, tell.
Me what do you think? What what's the craziest thing of this old dude.
I don't know that Mickey Mouse.
He just he offered that willingly. He didn't know what he prodded him. They were like, do you think was the first Charlie Temple and Mickey Mouse? It's so funny, man. There's so many parts about this guy. And here's why it's so interesting to me, right, is because as a musician, as a producer, as a person who's worked in the music industry, I've met this guy one hundred times at
least already. I've met this guy so many times. I've absolutely seen people who I guarantee in thirty years or whatever, I'm gonna be sitting at home and there's gonna come on and be like, yes, all coming, Yes, all I coming. That was absolutely gonna happen. I predicted this for sure.
You know, can't wait for the Tell Court interview. So yeah. So, I mean that's the thing that I really enjoy about this story is is the you know it is It is generally just the story of a shitty, shitty, shitty person.
There's a lot of those in Hollywood, but I I like to separate, like, this is one of the like, for example, right when Michael Jackson and when when a lot of the most recent things have come out, I kind of made a choice, like I feel like, man, I don't need to listen to your music anymore, Like all the classics are there, but I just don't. I don't.
I'm not gonna get mad if anybody else does, but I definitely I'm I'm I'm drawing a line between that was that was wrong and I don't like it lost profits. I don't listen to lost profits anymore. But Phil Spector had such an undeniable hold on so many important artists and so many songs that it's just like to erase that would be erasing a core part of my being existed before Phil Spector killed Lona Clucks in two thousand and three. You know, like all of those songs existed
in my life before then. And and it really is like it's it's difficult, it's it's a difficult thing. And and also, you know, I like to take some tiny bit of solace in the fact that, like I can.
Tell other people how horror he was. Yeah, it was this shittiest person.
He made some bangers, He did some amazing things that that are like just not have not been replicated in the music industry and undeniably a huge sonic inspiration for me. Like I literally consider myself to be the stereo phil Specter. Like this dude, he was divorced three times. Nail it, Phil, you know, I know, but musically musically really uh he he he, he does so much.
I truly believe in what he did, like this way that he crafted the music that he did.
It's it's how I like to use the studio as part of the process of making music to have these creative moments. And I'm largely inspired by him and the Beatles in doing that, and so it is hard to remove that. So my my justification is that I'm just out here telling you guys how shitty it was, so it alleviates my conscience.
Well, there's worse ways to alleviate your conscience, Yeah, Phil spe a few of them.
Man, So thank you so much for letting me do this. This was so much fun.
If you're interested in the music from the episodes, I'm gonna give that to Sophie so she can post it. I'm also going I'm gonna give even like the stems and the sessions, so if you're a musician and you want to remix some of this stuff to make your own little home bastards weird, it's weird. You can grab those from Sophie. I'll put them on my stuff too. Also, I'm fighting the music industry from the inside. I actually I did all the label thing. Obviously, I have a
Grammy and I've done the whole label thing. But I decided to be the change I want to see in the music industry, and so I am starting my own label. I am working very hard at pushing my own identity in this that is different from the exploitive AI driven ownership of publishing bullshit that the industry has been come and I really am trying. So if you care about that at all, guilt trip. For all of you listeners, come and check out my new artist. Her name is
Violet Lux. I'm going to release this song concurrent with this with these episodes so that you can you can hear my very first artist that I'm signing to the label. It is. It's entirely Phil Spector inspired type stuff. I'm wall of sounding with the music. But if you like nineties grunge rock, if you like Alison Chains, if you like Mazzie Starr, if you like Nirvana, if you like Smashing Pumpkins, this is going to be right up your alley, so come check it out. The vinyl will be coming
out too, so check that out as well. Uh and and yeah, I got a podcast and other shit, So I thank you for letting me do this. Man, this has been so much fun. I love telling my friend this is like what we do when we're just hanging out, like explaining people to.
Each other, Phil and yeah particular.
So it's it's fun to get to do this on the stage that you have become. And I'm so proud of you, man, it's awesome you doing so well with all this. And I'm for you too, and your nerds on the subwritting talk on Sophie, I swear to god, I'll hunt you down like that Jay and Silent Bob movie. Beat the shit out of you.
That's right, that's what we do.
This has been a podcast. That's how I end my podcast by.
It is over.
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